


Miss Blue Sky's up there waiting

by naivesilver



Series: Land of Chaos Verse [1]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Fluff, Strangers to Lovers, taking some liberties with canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 12:41:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17141945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naivesilver/pseuds/naivesilver
Summary: Blaze saved her world, thinking she would have to give her life for it.Instead, she finds a new home and some time to recover.And, maybe, a friend.





	Miss Blue Sky's up there waiting

The first thing Blaze sees is white. Just an immense, never-ending field of white.  
It’s funny, she thinks. She had supposed, in that split second before she’d taken her decision, that it would have been fire red. Or black, at the very least.  
Only on a second thought she realizes that she should not be thinking anything at all.  
You ought to be dead, her brain tells her, and Blaze can’t really blame it. That had been the point of sacrificing herself: giving up her life so that her world could go on. The Emeralds accepted her sacrifice, and she can’t see Silver or Iblis anywhere, so it must have worked.  
But she’s not dead. So what does this mean for her, exactly?  
Well, she can’t know until she understands what’s going on around her. So Blaze tries to stand up, and to her surprise, she manages to do so without much trouble. She had figured, after feeling her body turn immaterial and impalpable (feeling, not seeing: she was too focused on Silver at that point to pay attention to anything else), that she would become some sort of ghost, but it seems that’s not the case. She even managed to keep her clothes on.  
By the time she looks up again, the white around her has started to turn into something else. It’s not a bright shock of color: it’s more akin to a shift, white fading out to reveal a whole landscape, with green grass under her feet and imposing trees like she has never seen, with wide, green leaves on their branches and green lianas hanging lazily in intricate patterns.  
All of it is very green, in fact. When her gaze travels up, over the treetops, even the sky has a greenish hue.  
It should make her feel sick. All of this should make her scream, and rave, and ask someone-anyone that might listen-what’s happening, and if her plan worked, and if Silver is safe.  
(A tiny, selfish part of her brain wants to beg, too.  
Rewind this.  
Take me back.  
But Blaze can’t allow that part to win. Not now.)  
Instead, she feels an odd sort of peace inside her, soothing her nerves and letting her just blink slowly at the unfamiliar sight in front of her. She figures that it’s probably a matter of shock, too: once the adrenaline has rushed out of her body, she’s sure she’ll feel more emotions than necessary.  
“Hello?” A soft, tentative voice calls from behind her. Blaze whips around as fast as she can, because instincts are hard to kill and the first sign of life in this weird post-death experience has approached too silently for her to notice.  
She keeps a defensive stance, even though the newcomer looks hardly dangerous. It’s an echidna, if she remembers old books and pictures correctly, and a female one at that, with orange fur and a sheepish smile on her face. Even as she gets closer to Blaze she seems to make no sound, but then again this whole world is strangely silent, especially after Iblis’ roars of outrage.  
“I understand this must be shocking for you” the stranger says, with a small gesture of her hand - half wave, half invite to approach. “Please, do not be afraid”.  
Her words ring a bell in Blaze’s ears: soothing words, like some she’d heard in an old story as a child. More than everything, they sound out of place, in this unfamiliar and possibly dangerous forest.  
“Where am I?” She rasps, nothing of her usual calmness in her voice. “Who are you?”  
“Do not be afraid” the woman (a girl, really: she can’t be that much older than Blaze herself) says again, and then, her smile broadening just a little:  
“My name is Tikal. And this is the Land of Chaos”.

 

Tikal explains it all to her, after a while, after Blaze has followed her to another section of the forest. Blaze herself is not sure why she did it. Perhaps because there was no choice. Perhaps because this place is dampening her every anxiety, convincing her to trust this stranger.  
However, no matter why, she ends up sitting on the bank of a large pond, in front of some sort of hut made of wood. The hut is a comforting and normal brown, but the water is tinged in the same shade of green as the sky, as if it was dirty like the puddles she’d find sometimes in her city.  
The water Tikal offers her in a bowl has pretty much the same hue, though, and it’s as pure as water gets. There must be something in the air that changes colors like this: perhaps a green sun, radiating green light on them all.  
The echidna drinks first, as if sensing Blaze’s hesitation, and then starts talking. She does so haltingly, as if not used to using so many words all at once.  
“Calling it the Land of Chaos doesn’t do it justice, probably” she says. “But I wouldn’t know how to call it anything else, and the name serves its purpose. It’s here that Chaos keeps his servants safe”.  
Tikal launches herself in a story that leaves Blaze dizzy, a story of greedy peoples and destruction, of a day saved by friends. And amongst those friends, Sonic. The one they’d believed to be the Iblis Trigger.  
Fuck, they’d been so stupid.  
She has no time to dig in her guilt, though. Tikal weaves a tale that connects those stones that she calls Chaos Emeralds, some of which Blaze herself held to save her world. That, and a greater Emerald, the Master one, and an undercurrent of energy and purpose that connects them all and binds people to them.  
“This is where you come in” the echidna girl says, turning to Blaze with a serene smile. It leaves her dizzy, more than the green water did: it’s a genuine smile, as out of place after this crude story as Blaze is in this place.  
“What-what did I do?” She stammers, uncharacteristically. “I only used these…Emeralds to stop Iblis. I didn’t ask to be anyone’s servant.”  
“You didn’t need to” Tikal says, and reaches to touch her hand. Despite herself, Blaze doesn’t flinch away, and the echidna squeezes her fingers in what is meant as a gesture of comfort, or of gratitude.  
And Tikal is still smiling.  
“You used Chaos energy to save your world, giving your life in the process. And for that, Chaos is grateful.”

 

Blaze learns much and more about this world, in the days following her arrival.  
Not that one could really talk about days and nights here. The green light around them dims at some point, making it easier to fall asleep, but it’s never truly dark. And they don’t really need to sleep.  
But still, there’s so much to explore and to understand. First, that this is not afterlife, for all that she thought she died with Iblis.  
It’s more akin to being locked in a bubble, frozen in time, where seasons don’t pass and people don’t change. They’re separated from their old world, as if it were thousands of miles away.  
They can watch, though. Tikal shows her a hidden alcove, where a small section of the lake shows the happenings of the other world, if the one looking wishes for it strongly enough.  
“You can picture every moment in time. Your past, the second you left your home, the future” Tikal says softly. She doesn’t smile, and she won’t meet Blaze’s eyes. “We’re standing still while their time moves. We’re strangers to their restrictions.”  
And so, Blaze watches. She does so alone, because a small, too proud part of herself doesn’t want Tikal’s pity, despite knowing that the echidna is the only one in existence who could understand her pain.  
She watches Silver cope with her absence, and fight at Sonic’s side. She goes back to childhood memories, where they were both too naïve to expect what would happen. But she doesn’t dare look to the future. Not yet.  
And through it all, Tikal waits. She keeps out of the way, though not out of sight. Blaze can see her shape out of the corner of her eye, waiting on the sidelines for a welcoming sign. Oh her darkest moments, Blaze feels the urge to call for her, but she swallows that feeling as soon as it comes up. She knows, logically, that Tikal might be the only one to understand her pain: the other girl must have suffered more than Blaze herself, even, considering what happened to her people.  
Still, Blaze mourns alone for a long while, feeling more lonely and in pain as the “days” go by.  
Until one day, when all she wants to do is rage and scream at the still water that just showed her what should have been her present too, Tikal comes to sit next to her. Silence stretches between them for a while, and Blaze starts wondering if she should be the one to leave, or to ask something to the echidna girl.  
But then Tikal starts talking.  
“You know, when Chaos destroyed my tribe…it left a few of them alive” she murmurs, voice so low that Blaze can barely hear her. “My sister survived. She was older than me, and she was expecting a baby when I…when the inundation came. She and her daughter started the line that would end up with Knuckles.”  
Blaze doesn’t know what to say, or if she should say anything at all. Uncertain, she waits for the end of the story.  
“I should have been happy. I was keeping Chaos safe, and locked away from further damage, and my people’s future was secure. The Master Emerald would have its Guardians.” Tikal pauses, then adds, after a deep breath: “But I didn’t care. For a long time, all I did was watch my sister and my niece in this pond and want to hold that little girl so much that it physically hurt.”  
“What did you do?” Blaze whispers back, tearing her gaze away from the water. “To make it all go away?”  
“It never goes away” Tikal replies, and before Blaze can react at that: “but I waited, and I worked, and I kept my watch. It faded a bit, eventually, enough for me to bear.”  
Impulsively, Blaze raises a hand to touch her shoulder, as much gratefulness as she can convey. The echidna looks at her then, with a small smile on her lips.  
Her eyes are as blue as the sky should be.  
“And I have to thank you, of course” She says, blushing ever so slightly. “It’s much easier to share the burden, when there’s two people to share the burden.”

 

Life goes on.  
It’s a weird life, still and full of novelties at the same time. Tikal takes her to see Chaos itself, and they watch that powerful creature linger in the grass with nearly religious concentration.  
It’s a stark contrast with the scene’s atmosphere, really, since there are various small Chao playing around what is akin to the physical embodiment of a god and climbing happily on its limbs.  
“Are you mad? That Chaos decided to keep you here?” Tikal asks all of a sudden, as they watch it pick up a handful of cheerful Chao in its large hands.  
Blaze shakes her head. Death would have had no nightmares and no regrets, but she can’t deny that the odd sort of peace this land possess has grown on her. By now, she’s used to bathing in the green light and to walking in the dampness of the forest, and watching her friends from afar is better than not ever knowing what became of them.  
And then there’s Tikal, of course. Tikal whose smile gets brighter every time they spend time together, who has the kindness and wisdom of centuries despite still thinking like a young girl now and then.  
Blaze suspects that the other girl’s mood is made better by her presence, too. The cat can’t imagine spending ages (because despite this world’s timeless nature, they do feel the time they’re spending here, even if their bodies aren’t changing) without company. She would have gone mad, had she had to fight Iblis without Silver at her side, and before her arrival there were only Chaos and its little offspring around here, both unable to talk and a painful reminded of what had occurred on Mobius in the past.  
But there are two of them, now. They talk and talk, until their voices are hoarse and their chests a little lighter. They share food, and long walks, and they develop a tentative friendship. It’s odd for Blaze, who has never had that many friends in her life, but it feels good.  
They swim in the lake together (not the see-through pond, obviously, because it’s as sacred as the slices of life it shows), and Blaze has barely the time to enjoy the pleasant freshness on her body before she hears a splashing sound and a small wave hits her in the face.  
When she reemerges, sputtering, she sees Tikal standing not far from her, water up to her waist, ready to apologize if her childish joke got too far. A moment later, Blaze hits her back with a splash of her own, and the echidna shrieks with laughter while trying to escape. It’s such an undignified sound that Blaze can’t help herself and starts laughing with her.  
She ends up laughing far more than she’s used to, after that. Her, who had always been the serious one. She laughs at Silver, who insults the trashcan he just tripped on while she watches him in the pond. She laughs at the baby Chao falling from Chaos’ body as it lays back on the grass. She laughs and laughs, and Tikal looks at her with a fond smile before following her example.

 

They become very free with physical touches.  
Blaze is not used to that, but she’s not used to many things that spring naturally in this place. And Tikal’s hand holding her own, brushing her arm, combing through her fur as they talk quietly at night is as welcome as any other part of their life together, filling her with a warmth she had never thought she’d be able to feel.  
When Tikal kisses her, it’s as if the last piece of their puzzle has finally fallen into place.

 

“I’m sorry” Tikal says one night, out of the blue.  
“For what?” Blaze asks, frowning. They’re curled on the ground, wrapped in a blanket more as an excuse to stay close than for a real need for warmth.  
They’re sitting in front of a large tree, decorated with candles and garlands of flowers. Earlier that day, Tikal had confessed her desire to reenact one of the festivities her people had had, and she had put a crown of twisted vines and flowers on Blaze’s head, all while humming an old song about spring and working in the fields of Angel Island. She’d seemed so happy to finally be able to share these memories of eating and dancing with her family that Blaze had wracked her head to find a holiday of her own to share.  
Her world had been burning and dull, but she and Silver had wrangled some tales from old people back in the day, stories about a forgotten day called Christmas. They’d found a vine growing on a wall, the closest thing they’d had to a tree, and put pieces of plastic and metal to pretend that their life could be normal, at least for a day.  
Her best friend is not here, but Tikal is, and the tree she chose is tall and vigorous. Blaze found things she could pass for decorations in their hut: they appeared, as everything does (food different from the fruit hanging on the trees, the blanket they’re using, clothes that resemble Tikal’s own), from thin air-it’s Chaos providing for them. And now here they are, celebrating Christmas and what the echidna tribe called Spring Dawn at the same time.  
But Tikal is not looking at the tree. She stares at the ground as she says, “I’m happy that you’re here, but it’s selfish. You should be on Mobius, truly alive, with your friend. And for that, I’m sorry”.  
Blaze doesn’t reply for a long time. She chooses her words carefully, because they both had enough pain in their life that she can’t afford to hurt Tikal anymore. From what it looks like, they have eternity to spend together.  
They will probably be able to get out of there, at some point. It already happened, while Tikal was here alone, because Chaos broke free and she had to stop it from committing another genocide. She met Knuckles that way, and Sonic; and while it’s better for everyone they know that such a thing never happens again, they both know that it would feel good. Talking to other people, breathing new air, the thrill of the fight.  
Until it happens, though, it’s just the two of them. And Blaze wants to make sure that Tikal doesn’t feel guilty.  
“It’s not your fault that we ended up here” she says in the end, covering Tikal’s hand with her own. “And if I had to choose one person to wait forever with…I’d be glad to choose you”.  
Tikal ponders on her words for a moment. Then she breaks into a smile, so bright and sincere in the candlelight.  
And even the sky, dark green above their heads, can’t change the color in her beautiful blue eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: the first idea for this story came to me a long time ago, but I never got around to writing it. When I received the list of prompts my recipient had asked for in the Sonic Secret Santa, I thought the time had finally come to get down to work. I made some changes, of course, because the most important thing was making my person happy.  
> So, a very merry Christmas, dxrkblaze, and have a great end of the year!
> 
> PS I thought a lot about what this Land of Chaos would imply, and there is so much I could write on the subject. How does a world without time work, when it's inhabited by people who do feel time? What would force Tikal and Blaze to get out?  
> Man, I could plot an entire universe.  
> I _might_.


End file.
